


Day 6 -- A Sliver of Stars and Moon

by MelayneSeahawk



Series: Blanket Forts 2006 [6]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-08
Updated: 2006-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 17:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelayneSeahawk/pseuds/MelayneSeahawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sirius in azkaban</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 6 -- A Sliver of Stars and Moon

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: http://www.livejournal.com/community/blanketforts/39636.html

Sirius can see a sliver of sky from inside his cell, misty and grey during the day and shot through with stars at night. The window is high on the wall, so Sirius can only see the sky, rather than the grey shore and dark ocean. It faces east, and for that, Sirius is glad; the slit is just wide enough to fit a handful of stars and a shining moon, and this little bit of reality grounds Sirius almost as much as transforming into Padfoot can.

From the day he arrived, Sirius has kept track of the days using the moon. It's something to do, and sometimes the emotionlessness of it keeps the Dementors at bay; there is neither fear for them to feed from or joy for them to strip away. The little part of him that isn't dying day by day finds this ironic, that the moon he'd so come to hate at school and afterwards has now become his salvation. He loves the moon now like he loves that man who fears the moon above all else. Sirius would laugh, but he doesn't want to bring attention to himself.

A lunar calendar like this is by no means exact for counting months and years, especially when Sirius finds himself losing days when the Dementors are particularly bad, but he makes do. It's not a real calendar, so he makes his own: thirteen full moons in a year, and after the first few years Sirius finds some kind of twisted meaning in that number. Numbers have power in magic, and thirteen is a strong one. So, every thirteenth month, Sirius tries to escape.

Each time, he gets closer and closer to the shore. Dementors may be fear incarnate, but fear is stupid, and Sirius is never punished with anything more than return to his cell and a few extra hours of torture. Most of the other inmates are too caught up in their own fear to notice what he's doing, and that suits him just fine.

Sirius scratches a tiny line on the wall next to many others and smiles grimly. It's the first full moon of his thirteenth year in Azkaban, and he quells a tiny flame of hope. He looks at the stars, so very many revealed in a place this dark, cold pinpricks of light in a colder sky. Soon, he feels, soon this ceaseless night will at last be over, and he will finally be free.


End file.
